User blog:RBlitzwolfer/Observations of 3.24.18
It's been a wacky week since the release patch of 3.24.18. The reason why this blog post is here is because the metagame has dramatically shifted, possibly due to buffs and the new cards recently implemented into the game. I will be talking about the popular trend before this update, and the metagame after the implementation of this update. Past Metagame For our purposes, I'd be referring the definition of metagame as "the popular trend towards regular players". Before the update, I've observed a lot of player's decks in battle. Here are the decks that were popular. * Lifeloss: With the addition of Stormmaster7722 and lolbeniceok, lifeloss has increased in popularity. This is possibly because of lolbeniceok's effect for a decent cost of WWYYYY. As of its power, lifeloss seems to be powerful enough to stand alone against other competitive decks, but not overpowered enough to pose a threat to balance. * Acolytes: Acolytes had a good amount of popularity during this time, despite having no changes recently. Most variations of Acolytes either took in the form of rainbow midrange or actual Acolyte decks which revolve on the Acolyte cards. Its overall power, however, isn't as effective against most other competitive decks. * Thaw: After the massive utility buff on Gato Luz and CinematicMind, with the addition of MesouricPhantom976, Thaw was reigning on as a popular playstyle. * Monored: Out of all the monocolor decks, monored seems to be the most popular (not by much though). The least amount of monocolor decks I saw was monoyellow. Current Metagame + Observations After the patch of 3.24.18 came along, the metagame massively shifted to more control-aspect decks. I'll talk about the new decks that surfaced along with my future plans to change them, if any. In general, most players are switching towards playing monogreen decks, or decks that involve generating green. Specifically, monogreen ramp decks and combo decks. Nightmares Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Nightmares seems to be one the most popular decks in the game so far due to the massive buff towards its archetype. Facing off these decks, I found that the Nightmare fighters provided more of a boardstate with the addition of putting more Nightmares to the hand. While on their own, they stand as good cards or good splashes, they can be a really powerful archetype combined together. I believe this is because its the combined aspect of their buffed boardstate and their attrition against the opponent's hand (nightmares). This is why I find Traumaturge, even after its buff, to still be underwhelming, yet I find cards such as Rat King to make me the most wary. I haven't found a lot of Nightmare decks use the actions, despite them getting a buff. For now, I'll leave them alone until further testing. Here are my plans to change Nightmares: * Rat King will only put one Nightmare into the opponent's hand to compensate for its boardstate buff. I'd still love to keep the aspect of Rat King's buffs. * Nerf Delusionist's stats, possibly its amount of base power. My best choice, in my opinion, is to nerf it to 700/100 * UncreativeName123 should only put one nightmare into the opponent's hand and deck whenever it is targeted. * Possibly buff Fenfie08. My first choice was to make it put two nightmares into the opponent's hand, but I'm a bit wary about that. Tl_rd Llendlar has been testing out the potential of tl_rd's card. Tl_rd is a green rare, 1000/100, and costs WWWGGG. At the end of your turns, tl_rd puts a Tom's Beans into your hand. So far, Llendlar's deck is working: quite too well, to be honest. For this sake, I will call Llendlar's deck "Tl_rd's Beans" The general gist of Tl_rd's Beans is to use various amounts of damage mitigation, such as Zolerus, Deadeye, or Classy Bear, along with vast amounts of green icon generation. With a benefactor of Tom's Beans, the possibilities are endless. You can use Tom's Beans on any big fighter you have, such as Razuatix or Imaginz00, so long as you have the icons to do so. This use of tl_rd is very worrying, as the damage mitigation in green is quite tedious to some players. My plan for the card is to change tl_rd, maybe even rework him, as soon as possible, but Llendlar hasn't even discovered most of the possibilities Tl_rd may have. Further testing is required. Classy Bear Classy Bear with Haste was a bad idea in general. It seems like almost every green control deck is using it. Leitris, an already good card, is overshadowed by Classy Bear due to its slightly cheaper cost and the ability to repeat its damage mitigation. With haste, Classy Bear can instantly make an enemy fighter loses 200 Power, which functions very similar to Leitris's target damage mitigation. We're going to remove Classy Bear's haste; there's no doubt about it. There was a bug where Classy Bear's StrengthenImmune wasn't working properly, so you could buff Classy Bear's power. This will make you have a decent fighter with not only damage mitigation, but also a fighter that can provide damage as well, on top of its inability to be damaged by counterattacks. Still is, by the way. Have fun. Viable Lifegain Yeah, not too sure about the effects on Lifegain’s buffs. One major thing about lifegain is that InceptionTime was buffed to deal only 12,000 damage to yourself as opposed to 15,000. Not sure how major this buff is towards lifegain, but it’s quite an interesting decision to make. So far, I have seen people complain about lifegain becoming too hard. One example is Llendlar's "dustgain" deck, where he focuses on using Dust and lifegain to play InceptionTime as soon as possible. In addition, Hoote was buffed to give you 800 Life as opposed to 400 (if I recall correctly). I see it in use by a few people so far, so hopefully Hoote’s use will spread. In general, further testing with lifegain is required in order to make a conclusion. I’m hoping to get more cards with OnHealthGain triggers to make Viable Lifegain a thing. The problem is that OnHealthGain has limited design space as opposed to OnLifeloss. People are a bit wary about adding in more lifegain cards (cards that give you life), so adding in either OnHealthGain cards or big cards that make you lose a large portion of your life are our best options. Meanwhile, my plan is to revert InceptionTime's buff due to the amount of complaints. Category:Blog posts